Текст книги "UnWholly"
Автор книги: Neal Shusterman
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
23 • Lev
Charles Cavenaugh Jr. meets Lev personally at the entrance of the crumbling mansion. He’s dressed like he’s too rich to worry about how he’s dressed. Even with the Cavenaugh family fortune long gone, Lev figures there must be enough residual wealth to keep at least his generation living elite. The only thing that betrays his allegiance to the resistance is his thinning hair. Nowadays the rich don’t have thinning hair. If they do, they just replace it with someone else’s.
“Lev, it’s an honor to meet you!” He grasps Lev’s hand with both of his, shaking it firmly and maintaining a steady eye contact that Lev finds awkward.
“Thanks. Same here.” Lev isn’t sure what else to say.
“I was so sorry to hear about the loss of your friend and your brother’s injuries. I can’t help but think if we had approached you earlier, the tragedy never would have happened.”
Lev looks up at the mansion. Barely a window is intact. Birds fly through the jagged, broken panes.
“Don’t let it fool you,” Cavenaugh says. “She still has some life in her—and the way she appears is actually an asset. It’s camouflage for anyone who tries to look too closely.”
Lev can’t imagine anyone looking too closely. The place is on seventy-five fenced-in acres, in the middle of a weedy field that was once a lawn, which is surrounded on all sides by dense woods. The only way to even see the mansion would be from above.
Cavenaugh pushes open a rotted door and leads Lev into what was once a grand foyer. Now the foyer has no roof. Two sets of stairs climb to the second floor, but most of the wood on the stairs has caved in, and weeds grow through cracks in the floor, pushing up the marble tiles, making it randomly uneven.
“This way.” Cavenaugh leads him deeper into the ruined building, down a dim hallway in equally awful condition. The smell of mildew makes the air feel gelatinous. Lev is about to conclude that Cavenaugh is a madman and run in the other direction when the man unlocks a heavy door in front of them, swinging it open to reveal a grand dining hall.
“We’ve restored the north wing. For now it’s all we need. Of course, we’ve had to board all the windows—lights at night in an abandoned ruin would be way too conspicuous.”
The place is nowhere near in the condition it must have once been in. There’s still peeling paint, and water stains on the roof, but it’s far more livable than the rest of the sprawling estate. The dining hall has two mismatched chandeliers that were probably salvaged from other areas of the mansion. Three long tables and benches suggest that a lot of people are served their meals here.
At the far end of the room is a huge fireplace, and above it a full-length portrait, larger than life. At first Lev takes it to be a painting of one of the Cavenaughs as a boy, until he looks more closely.
“Wait—is that . . . me?”
Cavenaugh smiles. “A good likeness, isn’t it?”
As he crosses toward it, Lev can see how good a likeness it really is. Or at least a fine rendering of how he looked a year ago. In the portrait, he’s wearing a yellow shirt that seems to glow like gold. In fact, the portrait is painted so that his skin gives off a sort of divine radiance. The expression on his painted face speaks of wisdom and peace—the kind of peace Lev has yet to find in life—and at the base of the portrait are tithing whites metaphorically trampled beneath his feet.
His first reaction is to laugh. “What’s this all about?”
“It’s about the cause you fought for, Lev. I’m pleased to say we’ve picked up where you left off.”
On the mantel just below the portrait are everything from flowers to handwritten notes, to bits of jewelry and other trinkets.
“These things spontaneously began to appear after we put up the portrait,” Cavenaugh explains. “We didn’t expect it, but maybe we should have.”
Lev still struggles to process this. Again, all he can do is giggle. “You’re joking, right?”
Then off to his right, at a doorway to an adjacent hallway, a woman calls out to them. “Mr. Cavenaugh, the natives are getting restless. Can I let them in?”
Lev can see kids craning to see around the rather heavyset woman.
“Give us a moment, please,” Cavenaugh tells her, then smiles at Lev. “As you can imagine, they’re very excited to meet you.”
“Who?”
“The tithes, of course. We held a contest, and seven were chosen to personally greet you.”
Cavenaugh talks like these are all things Lev should already know. It’s all too much for him to wrap his mind around. “Tithes?”
“Ex-tithes, actually. Rescued before their arrival at their respective harvest camps.”
Then something clicks, and it dawns on Lev how this is possible. “Parts pirates—the ones who target tithes!”
“Oh, there are certainly parts pirates,” Cavenaugh says, “but to the best of my knowledge, none of them have taken any tithes. It’s a good cover story, though. Keeps the Juvenile Authority barking up the wrong tree.”
The idea that tithes are being rescued rather than sold on the black market is something that has never occurred to Lev.
“Are you ready to meet our little squad of ambassadors?”
“Sure, why not.”
Cavenaugh signals the woman to let them in, and they enter in an orderly procession that doesn’t hide the high-voltage excitement in their step. They’re all dressed in bright colors—intentionally so. Not a bit of white in the whole bunch. Lev just stands there dazed as they greet him one by one. A couple of them just stare and nod their heads, too starstruck to say anything. Another shakes his hand so forcefully Lev’s shoulder has to absorb the shock. One boy is so nervous, he stumbles and nearly falls at Lev’s feet, then goes beet red as he steps away.
“Your hair is different,” one girl says, then panics like she’s gravely insulted him. “But it’s good! I like it! I like it long!”
“I know everything about you,” another kid announces. “Seriously, ask me anything.”
And although Lev is a bit creeped out by the thought, he says, “Okay, what’s my favorite ice cream?”
“Cherry Garcia!” the kid says without the slightest hesitation. The answer is, of course, correct. Lev’s not quite sure how to feel about it.
“So . . . you were all tithes?”
“Yes,” says a girl in bright green, “until we were rescued. We know how wrong tithing is now.”
“Yeah,” says another. “We learned to see the way you see!”
Lev finds himself giddy and caught up in their adoration. Not since his days as a tithe has he felt “golden.” After Happy Jack, everyone saw him either as a victim to be pitied or a monster to be punished. But these kids revere him as a hero. He can’t deny that after all he’s been through, it feels good. Really good.
A girl in screaming violet can’t contain herself and throws her arms around him. “I love you, Lev Calder!” she cries.
One of the other kids pulls her off. “Sorry, she’s a little intense.”
“It’s okay,” Lev says, “but my name’s not Calder anymore. It’s Garrity.”
“After Pastor Daniel Garrity!” the know-it-all kid blurts. “The one who died in the clapper blast two weeks ago.” The kid is so proud that he has all the information down, he doesn’t realize how raw Dan’s death still is for Lev. “How’s your broken eardrum, by the way?”
“Getting better.”
Cavenaugh, who has been standing back, now steps in to gather them and send them on their way. “That’s enough for now,” he tells them. “But you’ll all get your chance to have a personal audience with Lev.”
“Audience?” Lev says, chuckling at the thought. “Who am I, the pope?” But no one else is laughing—and it occurs to him that his inside joke with Pastor Dan has actually become a reality. All these kids are Leviathan.
• • •
Sixty-four. That’s how many ex-tithes are being sheltered and given sanctuary in the Cavenaugh mansion. It gives Lev a hope he hasn’t felt since the passage of the Cap-17 law, which turned out to be as many steps backward as it was forward.
“Eventually we’ll give them new identities and place them with families we trust to kept their secret,” Cavenaugh tells Lev. “We call it the Wholeness Relocation Program.”
Cavenaugh gives Lev the grand tour of the reclaimed north wing. On the walls are framed photos and news clippings about Lev. A banner in one hallway proclaims they should all LIVE LIKE LEV! His giddiness begins to turn to butterflies in his stomach. How can he live up to all this buildup? Should he even try?
“Don’t you think it’s kind of . . . overkill?” he asks Cavenaugh.
“We’ve come to realize that by pulling these kids from their tithing, we’ve removed from them the focus of their lives; the one immutable thing they believed in. We needed to fill that space, at least temporarily. You were the natural candidate.”
Stenciled on the walls are quotes and expressions attributed to Lev. Things like “To celebrate an undivided life is the finest goal of all,” and “Your future is ‘wholly’ yours.” They are sentiments he agrees with, but they never came out of his mouth.
“It must feel strange to be the focus of such lofty attention,” Cavenaugh says to him. “I hope you approve of how we’ve used your image to help these children.”
Lev finds himself in no position to approve, or disapprove, or even to judge the wisdom of it. How do you judge the brightness of a light when you’re the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts. All he can do is go with it, and take his place as some sort of spiritual figure. There are worse things. Having experienced several of them, there is no question that this is better.
On his second day there, they begin to arrange his personal audiences with the ex-tithes—just a few a day so as not to overwhelm him. Lev listens to their life stories and tries to give advice, much the same way he did for the incarcerated “divisional risk” kids he used to visit on Sundays with Pastor Dan. For these kids, though, no matter what Lev says, they take it as divinely inspired. He could say the sky is pink, and they would find some mystical, symbolic meaning to it.
“All they want is validation,” Cavenaugh tells him, “and validation from you is the greatest gift they could hope for.”
By the end of the first week, Lev has settled into the rhythm of the place. Meals don’t begin until he arrives. He’s usually called on to say a nondenominational grace. His mornings are spent in audiences, and in the afternoon, he’s allowed time to himself. He’s encouraged by Cavenaugh and the staff to write his memoirs, which feels like an absurd request of a fourteen-year-old, but they’re completely serious. Even his bedroom is absurd—a kingly chamber far too large for him, and one of the few that has an actual window to the outside that isn’t boarded over. His room is larger than life, his image larger than life and death combined, and yet all these things only serve to make him feel increasingly small.
And to make it worse, at each meal he is faced by that portrait. The Lev they believe he is. He can fill that role for sure, but the eyes of that portrait, which follow him through the room, carry an accusation. You are not me, those eyes say. You never were, you never will be. But still flowers and notes and tributes appear on the mantel beneath the painting, and Lev comes to realize that it isn’t just a portrait . . . it’s an altar.
• • •
During his second week, he’s called in to greet new arrivals—the first since his own arrival. They’re fresh off the hijacked van, and all they know is that they’ve been kidnapped and tranq’d. They do not yet know by whom.
“It would be our wish,” Cavenaugh tells him, “that you be the first thing they see upon their unveiling.”
“Why? So they can imprint on me like ducklings?”
Cavenaugh exhales in mild exasperation. “Hardly. To the best of their knowledge, you are the only one who escaped being tithed. You don’t realize the visceral effect your presence has on another child slated for that same fate.”
Lev is directed to the ballroom, which remains in a sorry state and is probably beyond salvation. He is sure there is some researched psychological reason for greeting the kids here, but he doesn’t really want to ask.
When he gets there, the two new arrivals are already there. A boy and a girl. They’ve been tied to chairs and blindfolded, making it clear what Cavenaugh means by “unveiling.” The man is way too theatrical.
The boy sobs, and the girl tries to calm him. “It’s all right, Timothy,” she says. “Whatever’s going on, it’s going to be okay.”
Lev sits across from them, feeling awkward and frightened by their fear. He knows he needs to put forth confidence and comfort, but facing a pair of terrified kidnap victims is different from facing adoring ex-tithes.
Cavenaugh is not present, but two adults in his employ stand at the ready. Lev swallows and tries to keep his hands from shaking by gripping the arms of his chair. “Okay, you can take off their blindfolds.”
The boy’s eyes are red from crying. The girl is already looking around, surveying the situation.
“I’m really sorry we had to do it this way,” Lev says. “We couldn’t risk you getting hurt, or figuring out where you were being taken. It was the only way to safely rescue you.”
“Rescue us?” says the girl. “Is that what you call this?”
Lev tries to deflect the accusation in her voice, but can’t. He forces himself to hold eye contact the way Cavenaugh does, hoping he can sell it as confidence.
“Well, it might not feel that way at the moment, but yeah, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
The girl scowls in absolute defiance, but the boy gasps, and his wet eyes go wide.
“You’re him! You’re that tithe who became a clapper! You’re Levi Calder!”
Lev offers a slim, apologetic smile, not even bothering to correct the last name. “Yes, but my friends call me Lev.”
“I’m Timothy!” the boy volunteers. “Timothy Taylor Vance! Her name is Muh—Muh—I can’t quite remember, but it starts with an M, right?”
“My name is my business and will stay my business,” she says.
Lev looks at the little cheat sheet he’d been given. “Your name is Miracolina Roselli. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miracolina. Do you go by Mira?”
Her continuing glare makes it clear that she doesn’t. “All right, Miracolina then.”
“What gives you the right?” she says. It’s almost a growl.
Lev forces eye contact again. She knows who he is, but she hates him. Despises him even. He’s seen that look before, but it surprises him to see it here.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Lev says, getting a little bit angry. “We just saved you.”
“By whose definition of ‘save’?”
And for an instant, just an instant, he sees himself through this girl’s eyes, and he doesn’t like what he sees.
“I’m glad you’re both here,” he says, trying to hide the quaver in his voice. “We’ll talk again.” Then he signals for the adults to take the kids away.
Lev sits there in the ballroom alone for a good ten minutes. There is something about Miracolina’s behavior that feels disturbingly familiar. He tries to think back to when Connor pulled him from his limo on his own tithing day. Was he that belligerent? That uncooperative? There is so much from that day that he’s blocked out. At what point did he begin to realize that Connor wasn’t the enemy?
He will win her over. He has to. All the ex-tithes have been turned eventually. Un-brainwashed. Deprogrammed.
But what if this girl is the exception? What then? Suddenly this whole rescue operation, which had felt like a grand and glorious idea, feels very small. And very personal.
24 • Miracolina
Born to save her brother’s life and to be gifted back to God, Miracolina will not stand for this violation—the corruption of her sacred destiny into the profane life of a fugitive. Even her own parents became weak at the end, willing to break their pact with God and save her from her tithing. Would this please them, she wonders, for her to be captured and forced to live whole? Denied the holy mystery of the divided state?
Not only must she suffer this indignation, but she must suffer it at the hands of the boy she practically considers to be Satan incarnate. Miracolina is not a girl given to hatred and unfair judgment—but to be faced with this boy proves she is not nearly as tolerant as she had thought.
Perhaps that’s why I have been put on this path, she thinks, to humble me and make me realize that I can be a hater, just like anyone else.
On that first day, they try to trick her by putting her in a comfortable bedroom in much better condition than most of the mansion. “You can rest here until the last effects of the tranqs wear off,” says a plump, kindly woman, who also brings her a meal of corned beef and cabbage, with a tall, heady glass of root beer.
“Saint Patrick’s Day, don’tcha know,” she says. “Eat up, dearie. There’s more if you want seconds.” It’s a blatant attempt to win her over. She eats, but refuses to enjoy it.
There are videos and books in her room to entertain her, but Miracolina has to laugh, because just as the harvest camp van had only happy, family-friendly movies, the titles she has to choose from here have a clear agenda as well. They’re all about kids being mistreated, but rising above it, or kids empowering themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. Everything from Dickens to Salinger—as if Miracolina Roselli could possibly have anything in common with Holden Caulfield.
There are also drawers filled with clothes in bright colors—all her size, and she shudders to think that they took her measurements and prepared a wardrobe while she was unconscious. Her tithing whites have become dirty, but she won’t give them the satisfaction of changing out of them.
Finally a bald middle-aged man comes in with a clipboard and a name tag that just says BOB.
“I used to be a respected psychiatrist until I spoke out against unwinding,” Bob tells her after the obligatory introductions. “Being ostracized was a blessing in disguise, though, because it allowed me to come here, where I’m truly needed.”
Miracolina keeps her arms folded, giving him nothing. She knows what this is all about. They call it “deprogramming,” which is a polite term for undoing brainwashing with more brainwashing.
“You used to be respected, which means you’re not anymore,” she tells him, “and I don’t have respect for you either.”
After a brief psych evaluation, which she refuses to take seriously, Bob sighs and clicks his pen closed. “I think you’ll find,” he says, “that our concern for you is genuine, and we want you to truly blossom.”
“I’m not a potted plant,” she tells him, and hurls her glass of flat root beer at the door as it closes behind him.
She quickly discovers that her door is not locked. Another trick? She goes out to explore the halls of the mansion. She can’t deny that even in her anger at having been abducted, she’s curious about what goes on here. How many other kids have been torn from their tithing? How many captors are there? What are her chances of escape?
It turns out there are tons of other kids. They hang out in dorm rooms or public areas. They work to repair the unrepairable damage and rot around the mansion, and they have classes taught by other Bob-like people.
She wanders into a social area with a sagging floor and a pool table propped up with wood to keep it level. One girl glances at her, singling her out, and approaches. Her name tag says jackie.
“You must be Miracolina,” Jackie says, grabbing her hand to shake, since Miracolina won’t extend it. “I know it’s a tough adjustment, but I think we’re going to be great friends.” Jackie has the look of a tithe, as do all the other kids here. A certain cleanness and elevation above worldly things. Even though no one wears a stitch of white, they can’t hide what they once were.
“Are you assigned to me?” Miracolina asks.
Jackie shrugs apologetically. “Yeah, kind of.”
“Thanks for being honest, but I don’t like you, and I don’t want to be your friend.”
Jackie, who is not a formerly respected psychiatrist, but just an ordinary thirteen-year-old girl, is clearly hurt by her words, and Miracolina immediately regrets them. She must not allow herself to become callous and jaded. She must rise above this.
“I’m sorry. It’s not you I don’t like, it’s what they’re making you do. If you want to be my friend, try again when I’m not your assignment.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Jackie says. “But friends or not, I’m supposed to help you get with the program, whether you like it or not.”
An understanding reached, Jackie returns to her friends but keeps an eye on Miracolina as long as she’s in the room.
Timothy, the boy she was kidnapped with, is in the room as well, with a former tithe who was apparently assigned to him. The two talk like they’re already great friends. Clearly Timothy has “gotten with the program,” and since he was not too keen on being unwound anyway, all it took to deprogram him was a change of clothes.
“How could you be so . . . so shallow?” she says to him, when she catches him alone later in the day.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he says, all smiles, like he’s just been given a new puppy. “But if it’s shallow to want a life, then heck, I’m a wading pool!”
Deprogramming! It’s enough to make her sick. She despises Timothy and wonders how anyone’s lifelong faith could be traded for corned beef and cabbage.
Jackie seeks her out later in the day—after Miracolina has determined that her “freedom” ends at a locked door, which keeps all the ex-tithes in a single wing of the mansion. “The rest is still uninhabitable,” Jackie tells her. “That’s why we’re only allowed in the north wing.”
Jackie explains that their days are spent in classes designed to help them to adjust.
“What happens to the kids who fail?” Miracolina asks with a smirk.
Jackie says nothing—just looks at her like it’s a concept she hasn’t considered.
• • •
Within a few days, Miracolina has all she can stand of the classes. The mornings begin with a long emotional group therapy where at least one person bursts into tears and is applauded by the others for doing so. Miracolina usually says nothing, because defending tithing is frowned on by the faculty.
“You have a right to your opinion,” they all say if she ever speaks out against their deprogramming. “But we’re hoping you will eventually see otherwise.” Which means she really doesn’t have a right to an opinion.
There’s a class in modern history—something few schools actually teach. It includes the Heartland War, the Unwind Accord, and everything surrounding them, right up to the current day. There are discussions about the splinter groups within many major religions that took upon themselves the act of human tithing, becoming socially sanctioned “tithing cults.”
“These weren’t grassroots movements,” the teacher tells them. “It began with wealthy families—executives and stockholders in major corporations—as a way of setting an example for the masses, because if even the rich approve of unwinding, then everyone should. The tithing cults were part of a calculated plan to root unwinding in the national psyche.”
Miracolina can’t keep herself from raising her hand. “Excuse me,” she tells the instructor, “but I’m Catholic and don’t belong to a tithing cult. So how do you account for me?”
She thought the teacher might say, You’re the exception that proves the rule, or something equally insipid, but she doesn’t. Instead she only says, “Hmm, that’s interesting. I bet Lev would love to talk to you about that.”
To Miracolina, that’s the worst threat the teacher could make, and she knows it. It keeps Miracolina quiet. Even so, her resistance to the resistance is well known in the mansion, and she is called in for an unwanted audience with the boy who didn’t detonate.
• • •
It happens on Monday morning. She’s pulled out of her intolerable therapy group and taken to a section of the mansion she hasn’t seen before—escorted by not one, but two resistance workers. Although she can’t be sure, she suspects at least one of them is armed. They take her to a plant-filled arboretum, all curved glass and sunshine, kept heated and restored to its former glory. In the center is a mahogany table and two chairs. He’s already there, sitting in one of the chairs, the boy at the center of this bizarre hero worship. She sits across from him and waits for him to speak first. Even before he speaks, she can tell he’s genuinely interested in her: the only square peg in the whole mansion who can’t be whittled round.
“So what’s up with you?” he says after studying her for a few moments. She’s offended by the informality of the question—as if her whole stance on everything occurring in this place is a matter of “something being up.” Well, today she’ll make it clear to him that her defiance is more than just attitude.
“Are you actually interested in me, clapper, or am I just the bug you can’t squash beneath your iron boot?”
He laughs at that. “Iron boot—that’s a good one.” He lifts his foot to show her the sole of his Nike. “I’ll admit there may be some stomped spiders between the treads, but that’s about it.”
“If you’re going to give me the third degree,” she tells him, “let’s get it over with. Best to withhold food or water; water is probably best. I’ll get thirsty before I get hungry.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Do you really think I’m like that? Why would you think that?”
“I was taken by force, and you’re keeping me here against my will,” she says, leaning across the table toward him. She considers spitting in his face, but decides to save that gesture as punctuation for a more appropriate moment. “Imprisonment is still imprisonment, no matter how many layers of cotton you wrap it in.” That makes him lean farther away, and she knows she’s pushed a button. She remembers seeing those pictures of him back when he was all over the news, wrapped in cotton and kept in a bombproof cell.
“I really don’t get you,” he says, a bit of anger in his voice this time. “We saved your life. You could at least be a little grateful.”
“You have robbed me, and everyone here, of their purpose. That’s not salvation, that’s damnation.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Now it’s her turn to get angry. “Yes, you’re sorry I feel that way, everyone’s sorry I feel that way. Are you going to keep this up until I don’t feel that way anymore?”
He stands up suddenly, pushing his chair back, and paces, fern leaves brushing his clothes. She knows she’s gotten to him. He seems like he’s about to storm out, but instead takes a deep breath and turns back to her.
“I know what you’re going through,” he says. “I was brainwashed by my family to actually want to be unwound—and not just by my family, but by my friends, my church, everyone I looked up to. The only voice who spoke sense was my brother Marcus, but I was too blind to hear him until the day I got kidnapped.”
“You mean see,” she says, putting a nice speed bump in his way.
“Huh?”
“Too blind to see him, too deaf to hear him. Get your senses straight. Or maybe you can’t, because you’re senseless.”
He smiles. “You’re good.”
“And anyway, I don’t need to hear your life story. I already know it. You got caught in a freeway pileup, and the Akron AWOL used you as a human shield—very noble. Then he turned you, like cheese gone bad.”
“He didn’t turn me. It was getting away from my tithing, and seeing unwinding for what it is. That’s what turned me.”
“Because being a murderer is better than being a tithe, isn’t that right, clapper?”
He sits back down again, calmer, and it frustrates her that he is becoming immune to her snipes.
“When you live a life without questions, you’re unprepared for the questions when they come,” he says. “You get angry and you totally lack the skills to deal with the anger. So yes, I became a clapper, but only because I was too innocent to know how guilty I was becoming.”
There is an intensity about him now, and a moistness to his eyes. Miracolina can tell that he is sincere, and that this is not just a show for her. Maybe he’s even saying more than he meant to say. She begins to wonder if she has misjudged him, and then gets angry at herself for wondering such a thing.
“You think I’m like you, but I’m not,” Miracolina says. “I’m not part of a religious order that tithes. My parents did it in spite of our beliefs, not because of it.”
“But you were still raised to believe it was your purpose, weren’t you?”
“My purpose was to save my brother’s life by being a marrow donor, so my purpose was served before I was six months old.”
“And doesn’t that make you angry that the only reason you’re here was to help someone else?”
“Not at all,” she says a little too quickly. She purses her lips and leans back in her chair, squirming a bit. The chair feels a little too hard beneath her. “All right, so maybe I do feel angry once in a while, but I understand why they did it. If I were them, I would have done the same thing.”
“Agreed,” he says. “But once your purpose was served, shouldn’t your life be your own?”
“Miracles are the property of God,” she answers.
“No,” he says, “miracles are gifts from God. To call them his property insults the spirit in which they are given.”
She opens her mouth to reply but finds she has no response, because he’s right. Damn him for being right—nothing about him should be right!
“We’ll talk again when you’re over yourself,” he says, and signals a waiting guard to take her away.
• • •
The next day a class is added into her schedule, to keep her from having too idle a mind. It’s called Creative Projection. It takes place in a classroom that was once some kind of parlor, with faded, moth-eaten portraits on peeling walls. Miracolina wonders if the stodgy faces in the paintings look down on the lessons here with approval, disapproval, or absolute indifference.
“I want you to write a story,” says the teacher, a man with annoying little round glasses. Glasses! Objects of antiquity no longer needed by anyone, what with laser procedures and affordable eye-replacement surgery. There is a certain arrogance to their quaintness. As if people who choose to wear glasses feel they are somehow superior.
“I want you to write the story of you—your biography. Not the life you’ve lived but the life you’re going to live. This is the biography you might write forty, fifty years from now.” The teacher wanders the room, gesticulating into the air, probably imagining himself to be Plato or someone equally lofty. “Project yourselves forward. Tell me who you think you’ll be. I know that’ll be hard for all of you. You’ve never dared think of the future—but now you can. I want you to enjoy this. Be as wild as you want. Have fun with it!”
